Petticoat Rule

There at the further end of the room, against the rich gold of the curtain, she saw Gaston de Stainville standing beside his wife and one or two other women, the centre of a gai...

Monsieur Achille was waiting in the vestibule of the Queen's apartments. As soon as Lord and Lady Eglinton appeared his majestic figure detached itself from the various groups o...

Torpor had left her; even that intensity of loathing had gone, which for the past half-hour had numbed her very senses and caused her to move and speak like an irresponsible aut...

As soon as M. Durand had recovered from the shock of Madame la Marquise's sudden invasion of his sanctum, he ran to the portière which he had been watching so anxiously, and, pu...

Indeed, if Irène de Stainville had possessed more penetration, or had at any rate studied Lydie's face more closely, she would never have imagined for a moment that thoughts of...

Lydie hardly knew how she reached her apartments. Earlier in the day she had thought once or twice that she had reached the deepest abyss of sorrow and humiliation into which it...

She opened her eyes and saw the handsome face of "le petit Anglais" turned up to her with a look of humility, a deprecatory offer of service, and withal a strange mingling of co...

In a small alcove, which was raised above the level of the rest of the floor by a couple of steps and divided from the main banqueting hall by a heavy damask curtain now partial...

Great activity reigned in the corridors and kitchens of the old château. M. le Chef--the only true rival the immortal Vatel ever had--in white cap and apron, calm and self-posse...

When Monsieur Achille, having escorted Madame la Marquise as far as her apartments, once more retraced his sedate footsteps toward those occupied by Lord Eglinton, he was much s...

The buzz of talk was going on as loudly and incessantly as before. The whispered conversation around M. le Contrôleur's bedside had excited no violent curiosity. The first surpr...

Apparently there was to be no end to royal graciousness this morning, as every one who looked could see. Hardly was the coat on M. le Contrôleur's shoulders than the King engage...

A few minutes later he had reached the principal inn of the town, "L'Auberge des Trois Matelots," immediately opposite the rough wooden jetty, and from the bay window of which G...

Of all the conjectures which had racked his brains for the past two hours none had come near this amazing reality. Gaston was no fool, and in one vivid flash he saw before his m...

Lydie returned to the palace in a very different frame of mind than when, half an hour ago, she had run along corridor and staircase, her nerves on the jar, her whole being smar...

The next moment she felt a firm, hot grip on her wrist, and her left hand was forcibly drawn away from her face, whilst an eager voice spoke quick, vehement words, the purport o...

The noise of talk and laughter still filled the old château from end to end. Though the special guest of the evening had departed and royalty no longer graced the proceedings, s...

It was M. des Coutures--a middle-aged man, military governor of Le Havre--who had caught Gaston de Stainville in his arms when the latter all but lost consciousness. A dozen wil...

In a moment, with the swiftness born of long usage, the demeanour of the three gentlemen underwent a quick and sudden change. They seemed to pull their gorgeous figures together...

He was then lying in Jean Marie's best bed, between lavender-scented sheets. On his right a tiny open window afforded a glimpse of sea and sky, and of many graceful craft gently...

Irène de Stainville was quite right when she thought that sympathy would be on her side, in the grave affront which had been put upon her, and for which she had revenged herself...

All that France possessed of nobility, of wit and of valour, seemed to have found its way on this beautiful day in August past the magic portal guarded by Baptiste, the dragon,...

Perhaps certain characteristics which milor the Marquis of Eglinton had inherited from his English grandfather caused him to assume a more elaborate costume for his _petit lever...

Monsieur le Marquis d'Eglinton, Comptroller-General of Finance, Chevalier of the Order of St. Louis, Peer of England and of France, occupied the west wing of the Château of Vers...

M. de Stainville shook off his moodiness. The vision of la belle Irène standing there in the satin-hung boudoir, the soft glow of well-shaded candles shedding an elusive, rosy l...

Lydie waited a few moments while her father's brisk steps died away along the stone-flagged corridors. In the silence of the evening, the quietude which rested on this distant p...

His Majesty certainly looked far less bored than he usually did on his royal consort's reception evenings. He entered the room with a good-natured smile on his face, which did n...

M. le Duc d'Aumont, Prime Minister of His Majesty King Louis XV of France, was exceedingly perturbed. He had just had two separate interviews, each of half an hour's duration, a...

The voice, that of a man still in the prime of life, but already raucous in its tone, thickened through constant mirthless laughter, rendered querulous too from long vigils kept...

A shrill laugh suddenly broke on their ears. So absorbed had Lydie been in her dream that she had completely forgotten the other world, the one that laughed and talked, that fou...

The vast audience chamber which she had just quitted so abruptly had only the two exits; the one close to which she had left milor standing, and the other which gave into this a...

In one of the smaller rooms of the palace of Trianon, His Majesty King Louis XV received M. le Comte de Stainville in private audience. Madame la Marquise de Pompadour was prese...

What chronicler of true events will ever attempt to explain exactly how rumour succeeds in breaking through every bond with which privacy would desire to fetter her, and having...

It is one hundred and fifty leagues from Versailles to the harbour of Le Havre as the crow flies, one hundred and eighty most like by road and across fields.

"Bah!" he said with a sneer, "he'll have to fight me later on or I'll hound him out of France! Never fear, gentlemen, we'll have our meed of fun very soon."

The two men stood opposite to one another, a table not four feet wide between them. Each held a pistol in his left hand. Of these one was loaded, the other not. De Mortémar had...

There was one group most especially so engaged; at the further corner of the room, and with sixteen dancing pairs intervening between it and the royal daïs, there was little fea...

Gaston de Stainville had been sitting idly on the garden seat, vaguely wondering why Lydie was so long absent, ignorant of course of the acute crisis through which she had just...

XVII.--SPLENDID ISOLATION 179 XVIII.--CLEVER TACTICS 185 XIX.--A CRISIS 201 XX.--A FAREWELL 212 XXI.--ROYAL THANKS 215 XXII.--PATERNAL ANXIETY 221 XXIII.--THE QUEEN'S SOIRÉE 228...

CHAPTER PAGE I.--A FAREWELL BANQUET 3 II.--THE RULERS OF FRANCE 10 III.--POMPADOUR'S CHOICE 23 IV.--A WOMAN'S SURRENDER 32 V.--THE FIRST TRICK 45 VI.--A FALSE POSITION 51 VII.--...

X.--THE BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK 95 XI.--LA BELLE IRÈNE 103 XII.--THE PROMISES OF FRANCE 112 XIII.--THE WEIGHT OF ETIQUETTE 127 XIV.--ROYAL FAVOURS 136 XV.--DIPLOMACY 148 XVI.--STRAN...